Inventory of various types of items may be maintained and processed at materials handling facilities which may include, but are not limited to, one or more of: warehouses, distribution centers, cross-docking facilities, order fulfillment facilities, inventory rental facilities, packaging facilities, shipping facilities, factories, or other facilities or combinations of facilities for performing one or more functions of material (inventory) handling. For example, retailers, wholesalers, rental services, and other product distributors (which may collectively be referred to as distributors) typically maintain an inventory of various items that may be ordered by and shipped to clients or customers. As another example, manufacturers may maintain an inventory of parts and/or materials for use in manufacturing processes. These parts and/or materials may be ordered from inventory for packaging and delivery to manufacturing facilities.
In a materials handling facility, shipments to customers or clients may be duplicated during the order fulfillment process, for example due to human error, machine error, or a combination thereof. For example, a customer may order quantity N of a particular item to be shipped to an address. Due to some error, for example due to the order being printed twice, 2N of the item may be inadvertently shipped to the customer in multiple shipments or packages. A systemic problem may result in duplicate shipments being generated for many customers. It is also possible that one or more customers submit orders for excessive quantities of particular items, for example due to a pricing error by the distributor, thus generating many orders and shipments of the items to the customers. Fraud and theft are also possible; for example, a dishonest employee may intentionally attempt to ship particular items from inventory to him- or herself or to an accomplice.